I need to sandblast some stuff in my garage. I will be building a booth to keep the mess in, but I want to keep the dust level down. This is so I don't upset the neighbors. I will be using a fan to blow the dust out, so the less dust, the better. I have used sand before, but it creates too much dust when I blast. I can't do it in my driveway, or else I will get some angry neighbors. What type of media produces the least amount of dust, but is still reasonably affordable? I will be sandblasting some floor pans and rocker channels.

Maybe you could build a curtain to catch the dust. If you're doing this in a shop or garage, shorten the booth as much as possible, drop a curtain down from the door opening, maybe a couple of old blankets or plastic, the blankets would let air pass through while catching most of the dust. I don't think the sand is the culprit here for the dust, but when you knock off particles of paint and rust, you're bound to make dust. If you use plastic for a curtain, buy a large furnace filter, duct tape it in the curtain to allow air to pass through. Good luck, Dan

__________________
"When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not." - Mark Twain

I've used black beauty, (coal slag) before and liked it. It is not supposed to put free silica in the air, so it is supposedly safer too. it cuts pretty good, IMO.

I did a bunch of blasting on the underside of a car in my shop, and put my swamp cooler at the end of my tarp cover. I set up the cover so it was open at the back end, with fans blowing towards the other end, and the tarp hugged the swamp cooler at the other...The swamp cooler made a real good filter and I saw no visible dust outside of the tent and there was minimal dust inside. I just hosed off the filters and tray and it is all clean again.

Once I had to sandblast the brick fireplace inside my house, all I had was sand and wanted no dust floating around the neighborhood....I set up a plastic surround around the fireplace and brick wall that it is built in, then I set up a fan with a length of duct going outside, ran the duct under a 12x20 tarp that I weighted down on my front lawn, ( I hosed down the grass before setting the tarp down), and the grass caught all of the dust . If you weight it down so the tarp stays close to your grass when the fan is on, but still allows airflow, you'll catch the most dust...The neighbors thought I was just up to another one of my mad scientist experiments..

Looking from the back of my tent

my "alien autopsy" tent viewed from outside, there is a 68 chrysler imperial under all of that plastic...the 67 mustang under the cover in the forground had just been painted black, and I was taking no chances...

I have never used this for blasting but I'll try to explain what I have done to deal with paint stuff when I was painting in a place where it would have caused a problem.
I put the exhaust fan in the window (you decide how to get it there) and then OUTSIDE I hung a burlap bag about an inch off the window frame.
I usd a small recirculating water pump I robbed frome an old water pond project I had left over.
Under the burlap I put a 55 gal drum of water.
I recirculated the water out of the drum....up to the top of the burlap Which hung vertical).
As the water trickled down the burlap, the fan blew the stale air and paint dust thru the burlap....it got stuck in the water and traveled down into the 55 gal drum.
The sediment would sink to the bottom, and fairly clean water would return to the burlap to filter more junk..
This kept the ugly stuff from going in the drain, or the creek, or making a toxic waste dump of the back yard.
I'm actually going to build another one of these soon so I can do some projects at the house and not annoy the neighbors.

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